I make multiple references to Dave Snowden and his “Cynefin” sensemaking – organisational strategic action consulting business. My interests remain more abstract philosophically – metaphysical – but even with differences of shared understanding at this level, and indeed his personal style & preference level, I am nevertheless a “fan boy” at the level of his practical participatory approach(es).
I said as much in the post from early this year, in which I also included my favourite version of his Cynefin Framework diagram. This has evolved in detail over the years, particularly in the labelling / annotation language, but despite appearances has maintained its distinction from the Boston Consulting 2×2 grids, ubiquitous in management consulting space. However many dimensions our real problem space, any view on page or screen is a 2D projection, with 2 its own orthogonal axes, so this isn’t a criticism. But seemingly simple views – for understandable reasons of intended problem simplification – often lead the unwise to simplistic understandings and decisions. The Cynefin diagram always maintained the clue that we weren’t looking at a single contiguous plane. The aporetic gap / hole.
The focus was always complexity, so that different “sciences” (*) and approaches could be brought to various Simple > Complicated > Complex > Chaotic domains, but that has become a given, with all “Systems Thinking” being seen as a response to complexity. Snowden has multiple other working views and approaches as well as his framework overview – documented more and more in his prolific writing. The reason for this post is to capture a copy of a new overview that has been shared increasingly – e.g. on LinkedIn – over the summer.
I like it, even if I haven’t fully digested it or Snowden’s intent. The language in the boxes will no doubt evolve with context, but those two axes and all ten words of their labels seem to hit their targets.
The fine- and coarse-graining of interventions, the natural (externally) and (internally) stimulated emergence of new species (of whatever we’re interested in). And, the four levels of complication replaced with the simpler (Ha!) ordered vs complex distinction. Ha!, because all distinctions (#GoodFences / lines drawn, that diagram has several) are simple-looking binary dichotomies in our ontologies, however much we wish to avoid them being “unnecessarily” divisive in our real-world problem space.
The previous vertical divider between ordered (simple / complicated) and complex (complex / chaotic) is now mapped as the red arc, and the aporetic gap is now smeared and swept around the whole – partially turned inside-out?
Also having mentioned dichotomies, I notice Dave is pushing several triadic views. The dichotomies at fundamental levels of abstraction (ontologies) don’t go away, but any number of more practically useful views are constructed from these.
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(*) I say “sciences” in scare quotes, because a significant part of my philosophical systems agenda is that there is “more than science” (first link here) that matters 🙂
And I notice the latest graphic above is being shared in connection with his “Estuarine Mapping” methodology. Picked-up on that as an interesting concept a couple of years ago, but never followed its detailed development since. An omission.
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Post Note: Slight change of topic – but reminded of something I didn’t respond to at the time. A month or so ago, since the Birmingham ISSS2025 dialogues, Dave made some LinkedIn comments about styles of argumentation. He’s often quite pedantic about being quoted literally rather than any attempt at paraphrasing or rephrasing in ones own words. Obviously “claiming” agreement with Dave on the basis of one’s own rephrasing isn’t on – and I do regularly point out that we do have disagreements (despite which, etc.) – BUT attempts at rephrasing each other are a fundamental part of dialogue towards agreeing shared understandings of a topic. “Try this”.
Obviously they’re not “agreed” until mutually agreed and it would be disingenuous to suggest so. Don’t believe I ever have?
Very much my “Rules of Engagement” topic.
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